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Dear Montreal: Get over yourselves

Well, to be fair: Dear Andy Riga, transportation columnist at the Montreal Gazette, get over yourself.

Roving Universal Hub Web browser Tom Crowley alerts us to a Riga rant about how our impending Hubway doesn't mention that Montreal has a bike-sharing program and that ours uses the same basic technology:

On Wednesday, [the Globe] had a front-page story about bike sharing arriving in Beantown next week. The system there is called The Hubway for some reason, with one sponsor â€“ New Balance. So the awful name is the New Balance Hubway. Doesn't really yell out cycling to me, but I digress.

Quelle fromage! OK, so Riga's too busy to dash off an e-mail note to find out why something based in Boston might incorporate the word Hub, but I digress. However, he then goes on to write that maybe Boston is ignoring Bixi because we hate the Habs. Dude, our pal Stanley notes we are so over your little team.

The writer refers to Boston as "Beantown", an outsider nickname which few actual Bostonians use, while being completely clueless of the more popular nickname among locals and used in the name for the bike share program.

Not Downtown crossing Hub, or Alston Brighton Hub. The Hub means every place in the Greater Boston area. It means any place where you can get on the T. It means that I consider myself a Bostonian even thought I was born in Everett and live in Revere. It means that I can trace my ancestors back to before the Civil War.

To me if your family arrived in Boston between the first and second World Wars you are still 'outsiders'

Sheesh. With the several things that Montreal could tout as being superior (restaurants and fashion - and men's fashion in particular come to mind), this guy goes on a rant about bike sharing programs in cities that will see very little sharing 4-6 months a year? That seems a bit odd.

I have the suspicion that Mr. Riga is being a bit ironic (Canadians are all abowt that since the Alannis Morisette song) given the less than secretive nickname of our town and the obvious bicycle anatomy reference.

But I think his bigger gripe is that the article references Paris and Washington and leaves Montreal owt of the list of "heavy hitters." Given the recent athletic successes and the number of Hollywood productions hitting town (albeit all having either Adam Sandler or Kevin James in them), we're just not as provincial as we used to be -- even though we don't seem to realize it. Which kinda sorta still makes us really provincial. Do you think New Yorkers would care that a Montreal transportation reporter (all due respect to Eric Moscowitz, but c'mon) was complaining about the Times not name-checking them? C'mon Boston let's put on our big boy pants (or big girl as the case may be).

In the last month, this site has taken umbrage with a Philadelphia sports reporter, a New York gossip columnist and a Montreal transportation reporter. When you're fighting that many battles, chances are you're the one that's losing.

Sorry Boston, Andy Riga's always whining and crapping on something he knows nothing about. His attempts at building controversy in the garbage he writes are pathetic and are constantly appearing in the only English language newspaper that Montreal has. God, i wish someone would run a bicycle over him.